PAPA M

Plot a trail through the flashpoints of contemporary music in the last 15 years and you will be led to David Pajo As a member of Slint he forged the undisputed masterpiece 'Spiderland'. As a cornerstone of Tortoise up to their 'Million Now Living...' album Pajo continued to reinvent the guitar and the notion of the guitar hero, to say nothing of how the guitar was used and abused and recorded in the studio. His aquiline licks and dynamic shits in volume have proved hyper-influential. At the turn of the century whole cutting edge festival line-ups seemed to consist of bands who had formed at the crossroads of the recorded catalogue of Pajo's first two seminal bands and their dextrous innovation. Unsurprisingly his peers recognised Pajo as a one-off and his services as a sideman were enlisted on record and on stage by such trailblazing outfits as Royal Trux, Palace Brothers, Stereolab and Zwan. Between tours Pajo re-located to his native Louisville and began releasing his own recordings coalescing around the M moniker. M, Aerial M, Papa M - each new prefix signifying a subtle change in style. Aerial M's self - titled release saw Pajo and supporting musicians draw astonishing beauty from an unfolding instrumental set. Papa M's 'Whatever Mortal' found Pajo singing over the course of an LP for the first time. The lyrics have a noir, abstruse quality echoing country music at its darkest. The Louisville night was captured in a field recording back porch ambience littered with TV static and numb ansaphone messages. After the myriad configurations of M Pajo has started to release records as Pajo, adding to his canon of simple yet intricate pieces and songs. Over the course of fifteen years Pajo has quietly amassed a catalogue of music that radiates a beauty and physical sense of space that casts a brooding, elegant shadow across the instrumental and 'interesting' guitar rock of today.